G8 often fails to deliver on aid promises

published on May 5, 2010 in Vancouver Sun

This year marks deadline of Universal Access Pledge made in 2005 for HIV prevention

By Barbara Yaffe
Vancouver Sun

Those fretting about what services the Harper government’s G8 maternal health initiative will fund should consider the disappointing track record of delivery on past G8 aid promises.

Julio Montaner, director of B.C.’s Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, recalled this week that a 2005 commitment made by G8 countries at Gleneagles, Scotland, known as the Universal Access Pledge, promised delivery of HIV prevention, treatment and care to all those needing it by 2010.

“The G8 has failed to deliver on the pledge, despite repeatedly reassuring the international community about their commitment.”

While much debate around Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s maternal and child health initiative has focused on the Conservative government’s refusal to fund abortions as part of the effort, Montaner says there is an even bigger issue at play — a failure to honour past foreign aid commitments.

“There cannot be a successful Maternal and Child Health Initiative, unless we deliver on the Universal Access Pledge.”

The president of the Geneva- based International AIDS Society explains that in many African countries HIV infection affects some 30 per cent of women of reproductive age.

HIV is the leading global killer of women of reproductive age. Fully three-quarters of those aged 15 to 24 in sub-Saharan Africa are living with HIV.

A treatment known as Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy or HAART, says Montaner, has decreased the number of Ugandan orphans by 93 per cent.

He points out that motherless children are 10 times more likely to die within two years of their mother’s death.

The HAART treatment of pregnant HIV mothers also dramatically eliminates HIV transmission to their babies.

Yet, “so far the G8 has failed to meet this commitment and in fact it’s currently estimated that they are probably no more than 40 per cent [toward] achieving this.”

PMO spokesman Andrew Macdougall reports, “Screening and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS will be a part of Canada’s [maternal health] package.” But Montaner says this is a far cry from the Universal Access Pledge.

Montaner said he has repeatedly written to Harper to determine Canada’s current position on the neglected pledge.

“He has failed to state his position or even worse Canada’s position regarding this matter,” says Montaner.

Montaner has also taken his concerns about what he calls “a substantial epidemic” of HIV/ AIDS among Canada’s first nations people to Health Minister Leona Agglukak who “has declined to meet with us to discuss this issue.”

Montaner says he has invited the PM to speak at a July conference in Vienna that will focus on the fight against HIV/ AIDS. Harper declined.

The experience reflected by the Universal Access Pledge illustrates that aid promises made at high profile conferences too often don’t materialize.

And, with nations lately battling big budget deficits and onerous debt loads, good intentions become even more difficult to translate into action.

Remember the United Nations adoption in 2000 of the Millenium Declaration, setting targets for reducing poverty, hunger, illiteracy, discrimination against women and environmental degradation by 2015?

As part of that pledge, rich nations were to boost foreign aid budgets to 0.7 per cent of GDP.

Well, according to 2009 statistics from the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, Canada spends 0.3 per cent of its budget on foreign aid while the U.S. antes up a scant 0.2 per cent.

And Canada, as part of its battle against the deficit, announced in March it intends to freeze its foreign aid budget next year.

None of which is to say that wealthy countries don’t have the best of intentions when they set out to help by way of enterprises like Harper’s maternal health initiative.

It’s simply that competing domestic political imperatives often thwart those intentions. More >>

Content reproduced with permission of the Vancouver Sun.

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